Xi Jinping Finally Gets Around to Clearing Hu Jintao’s Desk

BEIJING — Returning to Beijing after touring Russia and Africa, President Xi Jinping finally got around to clearing the desk of predecessor Hu Jintao yesterday—a task the new Chinese head of state had reportedly been putting off since last November.

Arriving at 8 a.m. sharp at the luxuriously appointed presidential office in Beijing’s Zhongnanhai government compound, Xi was, according to sources, “disgusted” at the state in which his predecessor had left the workspace.

At 5:30 p.m., a disheveled Xi, sporting a floral print apron spotted with dust and grease and a set of bright yellow rubber gloves, called an emergency press conference to condemn what he termed “appalling personal hygiene which has invaded the heights of power.”

Pointing to an overflowing cardboard box filled with garbage, in which reporters spotted a half-eaten cup of yogurt stuffed with cigarette ends, a 1999 Sany Earth-moving Equipment Calendar and a heap of unread copies of Esquire, Xi launched a tirade at the “slovenly, shameless and revolting legacy” left upon his only available work surface.

“Cleaning up the Communist Party starts today.”

“Cleaning up the Communist Party starts today,” Xi vowed, giving an unusually candid blow-by-blow account of his struggle with “the ever-looming specter of clutter, litter and hoarding” in the confines of his new office, which he termed “a sacred space, the former refuge of great leaders like Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping” which has “since been tarnished with the stain of corruption and a truly nonsensical filing system.”

“I mean, what was a fucking Minidisc copy of the White Album doing in an empty coffee mug?” he asked, exasperated.

Xi went on to outline his new policy of the “Three NSFWs,” the practices he wanted banned from all Chinese government offices: eating takeout at one’s desk, the distribution of creepy stuffed animals at Chinese New Year and the use of government stationery to clean noses, ears or teeth.

He also noted that outgoing staff members should wipe their hard drives as a courtesy to their replacement, claiming that “otherwise some poor newbie will have to trawl through the weird shit you’ve been downloading for, say, ten fucking years.”

“This disregard for organization and cleanliness ends right now,” Xi added, hurling the box of refuse into a nearby dumpster.

Sources close to President Xi reported that, as of Tuesday morning, the only adornments on Xi’s newly-cleared desk were a bottle of Purell, a jar of hair tonic and his Party-issued ceremonial shotgun.